Choose Me, Cowboy

by Barbara Ankrum

  Except for the phone call, she’d had no other contact with him since the other night, which had given her more than enough time to obsess over every twisty turn the evening had taken. More than enough time to realize that her accusations about him setting her up couldn’t have been true. He couldn’t possibly have known they’d end up at the ER that night, nor could he have planned to put those papers where she could accidentally find them. And if such a thing had, belatedly, occurred to him-that she had the potential to help him fight his ex-wife’s custody case by fake-marrying him-she couldn’t exactly blame him for that.

  The kiss, on the other hand...she could blame him for that kiss. Even now, as she remembered how he’d teased her into that blunder with that irresistible smell of his, talking her down from the high horse she’d climbed up on with the nip of his teeth, while demolishing her perfectly good reasons for hating him by making her want him.

  She couldn’t want him.

  But she did.

  She’d lain awake, trying to imagine a life in Marietta, where they lived parallel lives that never intersected. But this valley was too small for that. Too small for both of them to share this place with all their unresolved ‘feelings’ still floating around like little predator drones, lying in wait to ambush them when they least expected it.

  Seeing him again—kissing him—had made her itch for something she’d forgotten she’d ever wanted.

  She’d have to be crazy to get in the middle of that fight he was about to wage with Melisssa. Or masochistic.

  Or ...crazy.

  At least, that’s what the sensible right side of her brain was saying. The left side, the side that chronically had her rubbing shoulders with fallen angels, assigning a time stamp on men’s shelf-lives and was generally occupied contemplating her next scathingly brilliant debacle, was currently up to no good at all, thinking about saving Finn and his children from ‘that woman.’

  She’d consulted, hypothetically, with her father about the situation and, knowing that particular judge, he’d agreed, in theory, with Finn’s attorney. About everything. Not that that had surprised her. Her father had only confirmed the trouble Finn was about to step into alone.

  None of this was her problem. If they hadn’t run into each other, she’d still be blithely unaware of his predicament. But she wasn’t, and she couldn’t stop thinking about him. About them. About her own pathetic attempt to forget him with a string of losers who couldn’t hold a candle to him.

  She wasn’t in love with him. No, that had ended long ago. Whatever she felt for him could be summed up in two words—animal attraction. Because, despite everything, he could still make her burn and hate herself for that weakness later.

  That would pass. Just as such feelings did with every other man she’d ever dated. Finn’s sell-by date had expired years ago and to stir up anything between them now would only be rehashing the good after the bad.

  Wouldn’t it?

  She sighed up at the peachy clouds that tinged the darkening blue sky ahead as she and Jaycee picked their way down a trail to the river where the horses could take a drink. Even now, the early September evening was still warm. They’d talked little on the ride and Kate knew that was Jaycee’s way of giving her the space she needed to figure out how to broach whatever topic had brought her here this evening.

  After Kate’s own mother had died when she and Eve were still young, Jaycee and her daughter, Olivia, had come along a few years later, like a bright wish, to save them all from sadness. But Kate’s issues around secrets had started long before that, though, when she’d decided not to burden her father or Eve with things that might bring them sadness, to layer atop the loss all of them felt. And despite the fact that she could always count on Jaycee to listen and be a sounding board for them all, as the years passed, she found herself more and more protective of that happiness they’d managed to find. Which, in turn, mutated into an unhealthy tendency toward keeping secrets.

  It was a problem she’d managed to mostly ignore until Finn came back. Now, it just felt...lonely.

  At the river, they dismounted and let the horses drink and graze, simply ground tying them so they wouldn’t stray. She and Jaycee stretched out the kinks, then perched on a granite overhang and stared out across the valley. In the distance, the low profile of Marietta skimmed the horizon. To the east, the craggy Beartooth Mountains fingered up into the blue and the tips disappeared in low clouds.

  “Did you ever think you’d end up here?” she asked Jaycee. “When you were younger?”

  “Here, as in here? Or as in living the life I’m living?”

  “Yeah,” Kate answered with a smile. “How did you know what choice was right for you?”

  “I suppose when I was still married to Olivia’s father, I couldn’t have imagined this life. I’d made choices and thought I was just stuck with them. Turns out, I wasn’t.”

  “I’ve always thought you were brave. That you must always have been brave.”

  Jaycee shook her head, her long salt and pepper hair shining in the sun. “I became brave. I took my life back. My first husband...Olivia’s father, well...we were a bad match. When I finally got nerve enough to leave him, your father, who’d been widowed a few years already, gave me a job and the rest, as they say, is history. I just knew when I met him that he was the right choice for me. I fell in love with him and I just knew.”

  Kate shook her head and plucked a piece of nearby bluestem grass and stuck it between her teeth. “But taking us all on as a package...my dad and Eve and me, I mean, that could have been awful. I’ve heard stories.”

  “So had I,” she admitted. “But I couldn’t have asked for more than you girls gave me and each other. You were easy to love. No bravery involved. And don’t forget your father’s part. He gave Olivia his name and raised her as his own. I couldn’t have asked for a better father for her, or for you girls, for that matter. We’re all very lucky, I think.”

  The river burbled by with a steady hum. Nearby, the comforting sound of the horses cropping up tufts of grass mingled with the rusty songs of the redwing-blackbirds as they chased bugs along the surface of the water. Beneath her hands, the granite still held the warmth of the day, but Kate had felt cold for days and she couldn’t shake the chill.

  “What is it?” Jaycee asked, touching Kate’s hand. “Is something bothering you?”

  “I...” she began, then took a deep breath. “I never told you about...someone.”

  Those grey eyes sharpened. “Who?”

  “A boy from college. I don’t know why I never told you, told any of you. To be honest, I wasn’t really planning to tell you about him now. I don’t know why I am.”

  “Because you’re ready to, I suppose.”

  Kate brushed her hair from her eyes, thinking of the way he’d looked at her and how incorrigible she’d been in return. “I was in love with him once. But...I guess I couldn’t quite believe my good luck, even then. I kept him a secret. From everyone.”

  “Oh. Kate...” She squeezed her hand.

  “I know. And I know you know what Olivia and Eve did last weekend. I know they had your full approval.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, but they did tell me their concerns. We’ve all been a little worried about you.”

  “Well, they weren’t right to get in the middle of my messed up life,” Kate said, “But I don’t think they were exactly wrong either.”

  “Which is why you’re telling me this now?”

  “No. I’m telling you now because... he’s here. That boy I loved once. Not a boy anymore. At all. I saw him the other day.” She told her about the ER debacle and the dinner after. “It wasn’t a date. He invited me over to thank me for helping them.”

  “Not a date,” Jaycee said with a smile, marking the distinction down in an imaginary note-to-self. “Is he...still married?”

  Kate shook her head. “Divorced.”

  “And so...?”

  “And so nothing. The night ended weirdl
y.” Her edit button on how exactly that night had ended was firmly in place. “But, that wasn’t exactly a surprise. That’s pretty much money in the bank where men and I are concerned. What surprised me was how hurt he looked when I admitted I’d never told anyone about him. We dated for almost a year.”

  “You didn’t tell anyone because...?”

  “I don’t know.” Kate stared at the river sliding by and the rocks visible below through the crisp, clear water. How long had they been there, those rocks? And did they move or had they been planted there for centuries? She glanced up at her step-mom. “Okay, that’s not true. I told him I’d kept our relationship a secret because I was afraid to jinx what we had. But now, I don’t think that was the reason. I don’t think I trusted what we had and I didn’t want to be caught making a huge mistake. Or admitting it to you guys. Turns out, making mistakes is practically a calling with me.”

  “Ahh. That’s not true and you know it. And, besides, there are worse things, you know, than mistakes,” Jaycee said, patting her hand.

  “There’s never learning from them...” Kate propped her elbows on her knees and scraped her hair back from her face with two hands and a sound of frustration. “I mean, I push people away. Men. Like...I’m afraid of anything good. The old, ‘I ditch them before they can ditch me,’ conundrum. Except for him, of course. That was the other way around.”

  Jaycee shook her head in the way she did when she knew arguing with that kind of logic was illogical. “And how’s that working for you, darling?”

  Kate sighed. “Not well.”

  “So, he’s here now...why?”

  “Apparently, he inherited Frank Greevy’s old place. But I could have something to do with his decision to stay in Marietta.”

  “You could always ask him.”

  “I don’t think we really tell each other the truth anymore.” She lifted her gaze to the woman who’d never steered her wrong, despite years of Kate believing that she knew better. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Do?”

  “He might need my help.”

  Jaycee sighed, brushing dust off her jean-covered thighs. “Do what your heart tells you to do. That’s the fun of it, Kate. Choosing. This, and not that. That, and not this? And if you make a choice, and you don’t like where it’s going, change it. It’s only when we stand still that we really fail. Because, Katie, choosing is all we have.”

  ***

  Finn had promised the twins a special dessert at the Main Street Diner for their date night if they finished up their chores. Deprived as they were by a father who had no baking talents, they finished their chores in record time. So after a home cooked meal, they took an evening ride to the diner.

  There, the hostess, a pretty, high-school girl named Emily, escorted them to an empty booth along the wall. The Main Street Diner, run by Paige Joffe, had been a fixture in Marietta for years and boasted hand-made desserts and kid-friendly food and he’d often eaten there when coming into town for coaching by his mentor, Frank Greevy.

  A pang of sadness struck him as he remembered the man. An old bull-rider himself from the old days, Frank had coached some of the best bull-riders out there. He lived alone, never married and considered his boys family. Cancer had taken him after a long battle and Finn was certainly not the only rider to come back to visit him. He’d died surrounded by friends. Not in a million years did he ever expect the gift Frank had left him and he would be forever grateful to the man for thinking enough of him to leave him his precious land.

  And someday, this place would belong to his children.

  “What’s your pleasure, you two?” he asked once they’d settled into their places and cracked open the crayons and children’s menus. “Sundaes? Cupcakes? Apple pie?”

  The kids crowed their answers simultaneously.

  “Cupcake!”

  “Sundae!”

  Then, for good measure, they shouted, “Miss Candy!”

  Finn froze as Cutter waved his casted arm at someone apparently sitting directly behind him, then started crawling across the table in greeting. He held out a staying hand and half-turned to look.

  And there she was. How had he missed that red hair of hers?

  Kate turned in her seat and tipped a small smile at the twins and him. He felt his stomach take a tumble at the sight of her. She had her hair up in a clip and was wearing her work clothes, a short-sleeved blue thing that made her eyes look a smoky grey-green.

  With a half-eaten salad beside her, she had her laptop open to what looked like a Craigslist of job listings. She shut the laptop with a snap and he swallowed thickly, bracing himself for her to get up and walk away again in a rush of frigid air.

  “So,” she said, in a voice more welcoming than he’d expected. “We meet again.”

  “I guess Marietta is a smaller town than I thought.”

  “Come and sit with us, Miss Candy? There’s room,” Caylee beseeched her. Cutter heartily agreed and slid over to make space for her on their side. “We’re having a special dessert!”

  Finn held his breath, expecting a no, but she was apparently waiting for him to extend the invitation himself. He gestured to the seat beside the kids and said, “Please.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she gathered up her purse, laptop and food, and changed booths, sliding in beside Caylee, who wrapped an arm around Kate’s in a sweet hug.

  “So, what’s the special occasion?” she asked the twins.

  “It’s our date night,” Caylee said, matter-of-factly. “With Daddy because we have a new ranch. And because he can’t make cupcakes.”

  “And we did all of our chores,” Cutter added.

  Kate’s eyes flicked up to his and caught him grinning at his daughter.

  “Date night? That is special,” Kate said.

  Breathlessly, the kids launched into a description of what they would do with all that space at the ranch, and how they decided to share a room, even though they each had one. With wide-eyed fascination, Kate listened to every word, intermittently glancing at Finn, who could not take his eyes off her, or get over how smitten his children seemed to be with her.

  He motioned to the waitress and quietly ordered for them as they got to the part about the cow they’d petted on the Double G Ranch this afternoon where he’d been negotiating for a bull, and described, in detail, the definition of chewing cud.

  “Kind of like this?” she asked, chewing a bite of her own food, then mooing for them. That earned her a roar of giggles.

  “But you need hay,” Cutter said and Kate lifted her hands helplessly.

  Dessert arrived and, like magic, the children fell silent, digging into their sweet treats. Finn, who had gotten a hot fudge sundae, dug beneath the whipped cream for a bite of chocolate.

  She smiled up at him. “I’m glad we ran into each other,” she said, pushing salad around on her plate.

  “Really? Me, too.” He was. He just wasn’t sure if he should be ducking or not. She might want to make good on that punch.

  “I don’t know if you heard, but the teacher I’m subbing for is coming back early. Tomorrow, in fact. So, I suddenly find myself officially out of work.”

  Hence, the job site on her laptop. “They’re crazy to lose you.”

  “Stuff happens,” she said with a twitch of regret in her smile.

  “So what’ll you do now?”

  She shrugged. “I’ll have to apply elsewhere. The budget here in Marietta has tightened up. I’ll look out of town, I guess.”

  Disappointment tightened his jaw. Just as he was getting here, she was leaving.

  “But...in the meantime,” she began, “to be honest, I’ve done a lot of thinking about the other night at your place.”

  Here comes the boom. “Really?”

  “Yes. You cooked such a nice meal,” she said, meaningfully, glancing sideways at the kids who were watching the exchange, with sudden interest. “And I was thinking how sometimes, you leave things on your plate you wish you hadn�
��t.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, trying to follow along. She had left food on her plate.

  “And maybe you were a little hasty. And you didn’t even get to the dessert. You know what I mean?”

  He squinted at her. Cutter nodded his agreement as he ate. “Daddy doesn’t make dessert.”

  “Well, why don’t you get one?” Caylee asked, looking up with frosting on her nose.

  “You’re absolutely right, Caylee. I will.” She snagged their waitress and pushed the remains of her salad away. “I’d like one of those, please,” she said, indicating Finn’s sundae. But to him, she said, “Because sometimes, a little chocolate is in order.”

  “A little chocolate is always in order, in my opinion,” he said warily, delaying scooping a bite of his confection in his mouth. “You...want a bite of mine while you wait?”

  She stared at him through a sweep of dark lashes as if she were trying to decide. But the moment stretched beyond a simple bite of chocolate sundae. She glanced pointedly at his children. “What I’m saying is...I might,” she suggested, finally, stealing a small bite from his sundae, “be able to assist you with the dessert you made—” she eyed Cutter and Caylee pointedly—“temporarily, that is. Just until the waiter in Missoula decides who gets which dessert.”

  He handed her his spoon, glancing at his children who were happily wolfing down their sugary treats. His heart suddenly started pounding against his ribs. “What?”

  “You see, I’ve given this a lot of thought, since I saw you last. About how some recipes can be accidentally messed up. You know, like when you should have added sugar but you added salt, instead?”

  He nodded.

  “Take cupcakes, for instance.” She slid her gaze again to the twins. “In the hands of the right baker, they can be so delicious. Everyone wants them. But sharing cupcakes can be difficult. If not downright impossible. Right?”

  “Right!” Caylee agreed, scooting her plate away from Cutter.

  He nodded, feeling heat crawl across his skin.